Iran's highest-ranking military leader blasted the U.S. leadership on Wednesday, saying Washington lacks the courage for a military confrontation with Iran.
Speaking to the Iranian parliament, or Majlis, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the commander of Iran's combined armed forces, said U.S. leaders are "disloyal, cruel, criminal, isolated, angry, corrupt, and on the Zionist regime's payroll," state news agency IRNA reported.
"Iranian armed forces are now, thanks to God, more prepared than ever and will not wait for the permission or approval of any power to develop defense capabilities," Bagheri was quoted as saying.
Iran will not bow to Washington's pressure to limit its military activities, he said.
Bagheri's remarks come two days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would impose "the strongest sanctions in history" if Iran did not curb its regional influence and limit its military programs.
Pompeo said Iran's "malign activities" extend beyond its nuclear plan and include its involvement in supporting terrorist groups in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
He also listed 12 U.S. demands for Iran, including halting uranium enrichment, never pursuing plutonium reprocessing and closing a heavy-water reactor.
Two weeks earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran that had lifted sanctions on the Islamic republic in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday called Pompeo's comments about Iran "untrue" and based on "old illusions," and said Washington had become a hostage to pressure groups.
Zarif said Pompeo had repeated old allegations against Iran "only with a stronger and more indecent tone."
"Pompeo and other U.S. officials are trapped in old illusions. ... They are taken hostage by corrupt pressure groups," Zarif said in a live interview on state television.
